About the region

The people of Gwanda District in Matebeleland South, Zimbabwe, are suffering from long-term water scarcity. In this region, rainfall is erratic and unpredictable. Only 13% of households have access to water within 15 minutes. When the rains come, communities lack the facilities to store rainwater, meaning they have less water available for drinking, washing and farming. During dry seasons, women and children can walk up to seven hours daily to collect water which is often dirty and unsafe. This wastes time that could be spent working or learning.

About our partner

Dabane Trust works with rural communities in the semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe to develop simple, appropriate and sustainable water abstraction and food production systems. An innovative organisation, one of Dabane’s successes was developing a new sustainable type of handpump, the Rowa, that makes water abstraction more efficient than other designs.

How we're working together

Since 2014, we have been supporting communities in southern Zimbabwe to construct sand dams and implement land conservation measures and tree planting. Not only will this create sources of clean water nearby, the regreening effect of sand dams and training in environmental protection measures will help to reverse consistent land degradation and should provide the communities with alternative income streams through sustainable agriculture..

Dabane is particularly interested in learning about ASDF’s techniques in design and construction - which can reduce sand dam construction time by months.  

"Dabane has made its name by getting water out of sand rivers. Our next step is to ensure we don't over abstract. The answer to that, especially upstream, is sand dams. Without a doubt."

Stephen Hussey, Dabane Trust, Zimbabwe.